94 New Species Described By CA Academy of Sciences 52
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences traversed four continents and two oceans to uncover 94 new species in 2009, proving that while sometimes in this digital age the world can feel like a small place, much of it has yet to be explored. Among the 94 discoveries were 65 arthropods, 14 plants, 8 fishes, 5 sea slugs, one coral, and one fossil mammal. Why does it matter? As Dr. David Mindell, Dean of Science and Research Collections at the Academy, explained, 'Humans rely on healthy ecosystems, made up of organisms and their environments. Creating a comprehensive inventory of life on our planet is critical for understanding and managing resources. Yet a great many life-forms remain to be discovered and described.'"
Re:Pfff. We live off an ECONOMY, not some ecosyste (Score:5, Insightful)
"If ecosystems were valuable, you'd pay for them."
Now, or later?
"Managing resources" (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, see, there's the problem right there: we shouldn't be trying to do that. We're lousy at it. We should be focusing all of our limited PHB managerial skills on managing ourselves and our own six-fold overpopulation, not trying to manage everything else.
Re:Pfff. We live off an ECONOMY, not some ecosyste (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude are you serious? On the off chance that you are, perhaps you should do a little research. You'll find out that supermarket shelves are in fact not plants, and that canned foods are not fruits that grow there without human intervention.
That's the problem with cities: People living in them become totally ignorant of the fact that despite not having to see it even once in a typical city-dweller's lifetime, the ecosystem is absolutely crucial to the survival of every man, woman and child, even if they never leave the concrete of the city.
Even the most processed of trashy foods requires, as a basic first step ingredient, some product of an ecosystem. Farms are not self-sustaining, without healthy, pollution-free rain, there are no crops or feeding paddocks. Without healthy bees, there is no honey. Without healthy birds, locusts would decimate crops.
It should be compulsory for every high schooler to spend one month of every year of school working on a farm. It's time we stopped schooling our kids to be cogs in the mindless machine of urban society and started educating them to be fully aware citizens of Mankind.
Re:Pfff. We live off an ECONOMY, not some ecosyste (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a programmer, and I am a big fan of the "need to know" basis. If I am curious I like to learn how things work, but when I am working efficiently I just assume functions and libraries will do exactly what they claim to, and write my code based off of that.
Living in cities has enabled us to abstract the bare necessities. Since we do not need to worry about where our food comes from, or how it is made; just that it will be there when we need it, we can focus ourselves more intensely on other subjects, increasing the net productivity of society as a whole. Granted in the event of a natural disaster of epic proportions most of the society would die off due to lack of basic survival skills. It is a gamble.
Re:"Managing resources" (Score:3, Insightful)
On a related note the best thing to do to fix this problem is to educate the women in africa, when educated birth rates plummet (which is a good thing).